Pertinent Pulp Cover Art

Cover Letters

An Ex (Ex-Administrative Assistant, in this case) of mine, aka Woman of 1000 Careers, is an aficionado of pulp covers1 and will, when she happens upon a specimen she thinks is reminiscent of or particularly pertinent to me, will forward the graphic from that cover for my inspection.

For example,

The Ancient Allan

Although it was a bit premature to apply the “Ancient Allan”2 appellation when this cover arrived a few years ago, it seems all too appropriate now, notwithstanding the absence of a walker in the drawing.

Allan And The Ice-Gods

Yep, she was one of my early Match.com dates.

After The Blast

I’m unsure of the the nature of both the “Blast” which, according to the heading, preceded this scene and the activity being depicted in the drawing. (I am assuming that the business at hand is not one of the those exotic massages experienced by the Duchess during her recent spree at the Cal-a-Vie Spa.) I also note that the “shame” referenced in the top caption, “Their lives were doomed to shame,” seems strangely incongruent with the facial expression of not only the gentleman but also the young lady, who appears, on the contrary, to be enjoying the moment. Similarly, the folks in the background seem relatively shame-free, exhibiting only an interest in observing whatever is taking place on that mattress.

Virgin Sex Slaves

The legend near the bottom of the page, “The Virgin Sex Slaves of Arabia’s Whip-Mad Sheik,” prompted this query from Woman Of 1000 Careers, “How the heck does one qualify as both a sex slave and a virgin?”

Note: Originally posted Aug 29, 2007 at 1HeckOfAGuy.com, a predecessor of AllanShowalter.com
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Pulp covers are those garish, lurid, fascinating works of art printed on slick paper in contrast to the cheaper, grainy wood pulp paper used for the text of pulp magazines. Covers were important enough in the marketing of this genre of literature that the most well known cover artists were as acclaimed as the authors. It was not, in fact, unusual for a cover to be completed before a book was written with an author then assigned to devise a story that was appropriate to the art. [↩]

“Allan” is DrHGuy’s pseudonym when he roams the extra-blogosphere territories [↩]